


Meaningful

by Eliyes



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: F/M, M/M, T'hy'la
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-27
Updated: 2013-09-27
Packaged: 2017-12-27 18:21:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 706
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/982122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eliyes/pseuds/Eliyes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kirk asks Uhura to translate a Vulcan term for him, but doesn't give her the context.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Meaningful

**Author's Note:**

> This story was originally posted on Livejournal February 16, 2010.

The main problem James T. Kirk had with learning the Vulcan language was that is was, in a sense, a _quantum_ language. Very literal, a word for everything, but only one word. There were no redundancies, no slang, no possibilities of _puns_ , even. You'd think that would make it all very straightforward and easy to learn, but in actual practice Vulcan had a lot of _really specific_ terms that just did not translate well. It was a measure of the stiff-necked nature of either Vulcans or Federation translators that such terms were just listed as "untranslatable" without so much as giving a hint or a general _gist_.

It was very annoying.

Fortunately he had a secret weapon when it came to these things: Nyota Uhura. Saying she had a gift for languages was a galactically vast understatement. She was some kind of linguistic genius; if it could be understood, she would find a way to understand it. As an added bonus, she already had incentive to learn the Vulcan language, since she had a half-Vulcan boyfriend.

And Kirk was her commanding officer, so he _could_ order her to translate things for him. However, since the word currently stumping him originated in a private communication -- and since he was, seriously, _not_ as much of a dick as she wanted to believe he was -- in this case he decided it was better to _ask_. Once he convinced her that this wasn't a set-up for a joke about Spock, and especially when he innocently pointed out that apparently no one else could do it, she stepped up to the challenge.

Two days later, she approached him with a troubled expression on her face, and Kirk figured it had been untranslatable after all.

"May I speak with you privately, Captain?"

"Certainly, Uhura. Spock -- you have the conn."

Kirk led Uhura to the small briefing room aft of the bridge, and waved her to a chair. He sat across the table from her, leaning forward to rest his forearms on its surface, fingers laced together.

"What is it, Uhura?" he asked patiently.

"The Vulcan term you wanted translated -- are you sure it was _t'hy'la?_ "

He nodded. Her pronunciation was spot on, better than his own.

"That's the one. Did it stump you, too?" He tried to come across as more sympathetic than disappointed.

"No, Captain." She crossed her legs and cleared her throat. "The very loosest translation would be 'friend'," she began cautiously. "Except much more complex than that word indicates."

"I don't know," Kirk disagreed with a smile. "I think 'friend' can cover a lot of shades of meaning -- but go on, Lieutenant."

"Well, _t'hy'la_ is specifically applied to males rather than females -- there _is_ a corresponding feminine form." She raised her eyebrows, but he didn't care about that at the moment, so after a pause, she continued with, "It indicated a very _close_ relationship. A -- bond, a _lifelong_ one. A closeness akin to that of _family_ , sir, or _lovers_. 'Soulmate' might be a better term than 'friend', really."

"Interesting... Uh, I know some Vulcan words mark the sort of rank, or, no, the dynamic of respect, I guess. Does this one?"

She shook her head, long gold earrings jangling.

"No. In concept, it's a bond that transcends that sort of thing. Equality -- balance. People who _balance_ one another, sir."

"Sounds serious," Kirk remarked, raising his eyebrows at her earnest tone.

"It is, _very_ serious. A Vulcan would not use this term lightly, Captain, or welcome it from someone he didn't consider already bonded to him in such a way."

She was about as subtle as an antimatter explosion, so he didn't explain, just smiled wickedly in that lazy way that ticked her off at the Academy.

"Thank you, Uhura. Good work. You may return to your duty station."

After she left, he made a quick note to himself, and inserted a footnote on a file in his received private communications.

' _T'hy'la_ ,' he thought, smiling.

For the next few days, Uhura kept shooting him odd looks, and Spock was more stiffly aloof than usual. Kirk pretended to be blithely unaware of this, though secretly he felt a little smug.

And why shouldn't he? After all, Ambassador Spock called him _t'hy'la._


End file.
